


(All the Same) Mistakes

by agenthill



Series: And, In Sign of Ancient Love, Their Plighted Hands They Join [39]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Family Dynamics, Gen, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 00:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13647690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agenthill/pseuds/agenthill
Summary: Her father is a great father, but he has not always been a great man.  Knowing this and accepting it are two different things, and even when she has—well, it is difficult to decide what it is she must do with the knowledge, how it is she can atone for bearing the name Lindholm, what it means for her to have this not-birthright.Or,Brigitte grapples with the question of legacies: her father's, her family's, her own.  What does it mean to be the daughter of a man who built weapons of mass destruction?





	(All the Same) Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [local_enginerd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_enginerd/gifts).



> so this is. a thing. bc i was like "oh yeah its canon to this ficverse that brigitte is in ovw but i never like... said why...." and also bc i have a lot of Brigitte Thoughts and she needs LORE damn it
> 
> this is for logan and calli bc. well its brigitte. gotta gift it to em

Out of all of her siblings, it is Brigitte who is gifted the dubious privilege of taking after her father.  To hear others speak of it, it is a blessing—she is gifted, talented, a prodigy, even, destined to build things which will change the world, another piece of the Lindholm legacy, not a cog in the wheel of something much greater but something important and complete all her own.  To hear others speak of it, she should be grateful, should be proud, should create things wonderful and terrible, weapons of war and liberation alike, just as her father before her.  To hear others speak of it, she is a Lindholm first, and Brigitte second.

(Once, when she is a teenager, Angela Ziegler pulls her aside at a party and tells her that nothing good comes of being a prodigy, warns her not to make her abilities into her entire identity, advises her to do only what makes her happy, and not what others think she ought to do.  Brigitte appreciates the advice, but it is unnecessary—she knows these things already, is aware that she does not want to be known in the way her father is.  The world does not need another Torbjörn Lindholm.)

Of course, Brigitte loves her father—but that love is not uncomplicated.  It is easy to love Torbjörn Lindholm, the man who adopted her, who _chose_ to be her father.  It is easy to love Torbjörn Lindholm, her father, who fostered her love of creation and taught her everything he could.  It is easy to love Torbjörn Lindholm, hero of the Omnic Crisis, whose creations helped to bring humanity back from the brink and gave them a chance to fight back. 

It is not so easy to love Torbjörn Lindholm, the man who designed weapons of mass destruction, whose works were used on both sides of the Omnic Crisis, and in many more conflicts before and since, who made guns and bombs and hundred other things not only to protect but to slaughter, not only to defend but to murder—how could anyone love that aspect of her father?  How can see him and not remember, if only on occasion, that it is likely by weapons of _his_ design that her birth parents died?

These days, Brigitte’s father is a good man; he works hard to atone for his past, to remove his technology from circulation, by any means necessary, to make up for what wrongs have been done by a thousand different hands—and ultimately, by his own—but that does not solve everything.  No matter what her father does, he cannot erase his legacy, cannot bring back those who were killed by the things that he built, cannot change the fact that, for years, his weapons were sold to the highest bidder.

Her father cannot change the past and Brigitte—Brigitte cannot forget it.

One thing is for certain: Brigitte cannot forgive her father for what he has done.  It is not her place to do so, for it is not she he wronged, and in the absence of forgiveness, unable to forget, there can be only this—this in between half-bitterness.  A truth unacknowledged, or at least not spoken aloud, that she believes (knows) her father has done terrible things and feels it is her duty to be better, to do better, to heal his wrongdoings as much as she is able.

Her father is a great father, but he has not always been a great man.

Knowing this and accepting it are two different things, and even when she has—well, it is difficult to decide what it is she must do with the knowledge, how it is she can atone for bearing the name _Lindholm,_ what it means for her to have this not-birthright. 

(Some traitorous part of her suggests she could renounce the name _Lindholm_ , for she was not born into it, but she quells the thought.  Torbjörn Lindholm _is_ her father, as Ingrid Lindholm is her mother, they are good parents and she loves them, despite her father’s legacy.  Never could she leave their family.)

When she joined the Ironclad Guild, everyone expected that she, too, would become a weaponsmith—but although she can cannot renounce her father’s name, cannot hide from his legacy, she knows she need not repeat his mistakes. 

Her father has not always been a great man, but he has done good things, along with the bad.  One such thing example is the number of advances he made in the development of armor, and it is in that part of his legacy that Brigitte finds her way forwards.

At first, her work is theoretical, is focused on improving armor uptime in the field and building upon his old work, picking up lines of inquiry her father dropped.  It is not _un_ rewarding, is certainly accomplishing her goal of writing some of the wrongs of the world, of saving lives—of beginning, ever so slowly, to add lives saved to weight against the balance of those her father’s inventions took.  What she does, when she improves armor, is save people—and, perhaps, they are not all _good_ people who utilize her technology, for she has no way of guaranteeing into whose hands it shall fall, but neither are they all bad, and her armor cannot be used to hurt anyone, can only save lives, no matter who uses it and to what ends.

Still, it feels like inaction, like a betrayal of her promise to herself.  How can she say she redeems a name when her work is so carefully, so deliberately _neutral_ , when she herself does nothing to ensure that good is done with it, when she sits safely in a forge, unable—unwilling—to see the terrible things which still happen in the world, and never intervening herself.  At first, armor satisfies her, but after Overwatch falls—well, she learns, very quickly, that neutrality does not exist, and measured _in_ action is an action in and of itself.

Neutrality cannot save her father, cannot save their name, cannot save _her_.  To save people, no matter whom they are, is hardly any better than her father’s choice to arm others indiscriminately—if the Ironclad Guild distributes her armor to Talon, to oppressive regimes, to gangs, then _her work,_ her legacy, is what is protecting them, allowing them to take further lives.  How can that be good?  How can that be just?

(It cannot be.)

For a few months, Brigitte is aimless.  Like her father before her, she quits the Ironclad Guild, for she knows that so long as she maintains membership she cannot control what will be done with her creations, into whose hands they fall.  To do so is not an impulsive decision, is one she has weighed since Overwatch’s fall, but when it happens—it is sudden, and then, quite suddenly, she realizes she has no plans, no job, no easy path to redemption in Overwatch, as her father did.

(Perhaps that sentiment is unfair.  Her father does _not_ rest easily, after the things he did, helped to do, even so many years later.  But it is easier, perhaps, than the task before her, to make her own future, to find her own way forward, and not have a chance at redemption gifted to her.  There is no more Gabriel Reyes to personally invite the worst of humanity a chance to rectify their mistakes, to become the best of anyone.)

When she leaves the Ironclad Guild, her mother seems to know already what it is that has gone wrong, why it is that she has done so, how it is that she is feeling—and perhaps Ingrid Lindholm _does_ know; has she not done this once before?—and so Brigitte finds herself home, again, this time a Lindholm in more than only name, in more than only feeling, in more than only the legal sense.  Now her legacy, too, belongs.

There is something about her situation that reeks of Greek tragedies—even as she tried to escape her father’s legacy, she led herself down the path to being consumed by it, to falling victim to the same notions as he had, thinking her work could speak for itself.

(She thinks, now, that she understands better the arguments she overheard between Angela and her father at holidays, before her mother could shush the two of them, understands both Angela’s need to control her inventions and her father’s insistence that it was futile, that at least if _he_ were the one to weaponize her technology first—there was no question that he would not be last—it could not be used so effectively against them.  She thinks that she understands, and wishes that she did not.)

But if it is her father’s legacy which traps her, it is Reinhardt, who is in so many ways many ways a second father to her, who offers her a way out.

He does not phrase it that way, of course, gives no outward indication that he knows what it is he is doing, although he must; Reinhardt is not nearly so oblivious as he finds it convenient for others to believe he is.  Instead, he merely complains in front of her, one evening, of the trouble he has had with his armor since his forced retirement, of the difficulty he has performing maintenance on it with his too large hands and lack of technical knowledge.

For her part, Brigitte knows it is bait, but she takes it anyway—no amount of distaste for what has been done with her work could truly make her hate her trade itself.  Like her father before her, she is called to the forge, and like her father before her, she cannot ignore that call, even if to do so would be for the best.

(Her father tries to warn her against it, tries to tell her that he thought he armed only the good in Overwatch, and look what happened once it fell, look where his weapons have ended up, after all, in whose hands and for what reasons.  Her father tries to warn her but her mother knows better, knows that Brigitte could no more give up this passion than Torbjörn could.  Her father tries to warn her, and Brigitte does not listen, for the situation is not nearly the same—she is not him, and never has been, and yes, they share the Lindholm legacy but this mistake is hers to make, if it is one; armoring Reinhardt is not arming an army, her works will never leave her control, not really, and would be of little value to anyone if stolen.)

It is a strange way forward, to take a step back—and this is, in its own way, a step back, armoring one man and not one million, working with a _knight_ , centuries past their time, operating outside of the law in order to serve the public.   It is a strange way forward, but it is a right one, is the only path she sees as available to herself without abandoning entirely her chosen vocation and quest to not redeem but _reshape_ the legacy of her family name.

 Working with Reinhardt is not easy.  They have few resources and little direction, other than a desire to do good.  Often, their attempts to help are met with resistance, given the reputation now associated with Overwatch, and they must accept that in those cases they can do nothing, no matter how much they might want to, for it is not for them to impose their will upon others, and doing so would risk being reported for violation of the PETRAS Act, which would furthermore prevent them from helping _anyone_ else.

Still, it is not easy, not when she sees suffering and knows it is not within her power to stop, not when people thank her, only to flinch at the sight of her Ironclad tattoo and to say her father’s name, among the others, as if it were a curse, _Lindholm_.  She wishes she could say that Ironclad weapons took her family, too, for they did, she would not have _needed_ to be adopted were it not for the Omnic Crisis, but Torbjörn Lindholm _is_ her father, especially now, and his legacy is shared with her own.

It is not easy, but it is right, and it is just, and Reinhardt is a father to her, too, and if she wants—if she believes strongly enough—his legacy can be hers, too. 

So they fall into a rhythm, one that is not easier with time but instead becomes more familiar, one of heroics and ignominy and unbelonging and being home with themselves.  They fall into a rhythm and slowly, slowly Brigitte redeems not her father, but herself, and changes what it means to be a Lindholm, even as her actions are more and more _Wilhelm_ in nature.  Perhaps it is slow, perhaps the scale of what they might do is small, but it is better for it, she tells herself, unable to be coopted or perverted or otherwise stolen from them.

They fall into a rhythm, and all is well and then—then comes the Recall.

What is Brigitte to do with that?

If Reinhardt does not answer, she supposes it will not matter, and perhaps she need not ever answer the question of what it is she wants for her future, of whether or not she trusts herself to have learned, to have changed, to have been made better with experience and time.

After all, she reasons with herself, Overwatch pushed Reinhardt out, made him to retire, and perhaps he will not want to return, perhaps he will—

A foolish thought, a foolish hope.  Overwatch _bettered_ Reinhardt, and so he will return, and will be greater for it.

But will she, can she?

In the short term, Overwatch bettered her father, too, only to become the reason why he still today finds himself travelling across the globe attempting to recover that which was stolen from him.  Had he left after the Omnic Crisis, it would never have happened—and Brigitte fears that if she joins him, she will be like Reinhardt, will have to be forced away, will never leave of her own free will.

But this new Overwatch is not the old Overwatch, it is small, almost frighteningly so, and were she among them she could always maintain control over that which she creates, barring a betrayal—and that would be no fault of her own, not truly.

It is a question, then, of trust: does she trust them not to betray her?  Does she trust them to do good?  Does she trust herself to walk away, if she needs to?

It is a question, then, of the nature of things: is the Recall good?  Can weapons of war ever be moral?  Can a Lindholm ever truly be a hero?

It is a question, then, of identity: Is she her father’s daughter?  Is either of them truly in control of the legacy that Lindholms now bear?  Is she able to ever make her own path, or has her name doomed her?

So many questions, but only one answer: she will go.  She will go, and she will hope that it is possible to be more than a legacy, more than a name.

She will go, and she will hope that she is more _Brigitte_ than _Lindholm_ , and that this is more _Recall_ than _Overwatch._

She will go and hope that the past will not rule the future, for the sake of all of them.

**Author's Note:**

> passing implication/mention of rein/torb/ingrid bc i can?
> 
> im like 99% sure brigitte is adopted in canon bc hello two blondes cant have a redheaded daughter it just doesnt work. also torbjorn canonically built wmds i am not making this shit up. like he sold that shit to everyone pre-crisis thats a fact. and then i was like okay knowing the three canon things: 1) torb did some bad shit 2) brigitte is probably adopted and definitely the right age to be a crisis orphan and 3) she was affiliated w ironclad but is now running around europe w reinhardt--can i give her a story? yes. yes i can.
> 
> so anyway thanks blizzard for fuck nothing ill give my beefy wife lore if u wont


End file.
